Help identifying this buck - Dave?

[Alan]

Early this spring my wife and son saw a deer on the property with a yellow collar, too early for antlers, thought it was a pet doe.

This afternoon I saw the Buck in the pasture, a very nice big 3x3 (6 point to you eastern and southern guys :D ). It does have a yellow and black collar and at least one ear tag, maybe a tag in each ear. Does not look like a store bought "pet" collar. Our bow season is winding down and rifle is around the corner, so the buck did not hang around too long, I did get some binocs on him, nice buck. If it bugs me enough I'll call fish and wildlife tomorrow, Monday. As an after thought I wished I would have noticed if he was a white tail, their protected here, we have black tails and mule over eastern Oregon.

Anyway, any clues to why the colar and tags? I don't think he's a pet released.

 

[Anonymous]

Radio collar maybe

 

[Kingfisher]

Do people breed deer there?

 

[Alan]

Hook, that was my first thought, there's no pack for a radio collar it's just a yellow and black collar.

Kingfisher, not to my knowledge about breeding deer here on the wet side of Oregon and Washington. I don't know about the east side. The more I think about it I'm wondering if he a planting white tail, if so he is out of his area. In my area the white tails are mostly on islands in the middle of the Columbia river.

 

[Dave]

It could be one of those Columbia Whitetails. They are an endangered species and most of them are on the islands in the river but it could be one that made it to the Oregon side and the Game Dept. marked it. But you are pretty far upstream for them. I have never seen one more than a few mile upriver from Cathlamet. Maybe a radio active deer from the old nuke plant at Deer Island? I would say it is something the Game Dept. marked for some reason. A few years back a guy I know shot a real nice bull elk that had ear tags in both ears. Same kind of tags I use on the cows. It was elk number 57, I searched in vain for number 58 but never found him.

 

[Alan]

The more I think about it I think it had to be a white tail. When we lived in Cathlamet, on Pudget Island, we a bunch of white tails on the island. They would write you a ticket for any kind of harrassment of a deer. But every year fish and wildlife would bring in a couple of helicopters with equipment that fired nets while hovering. They would transport a certain number up river to Deer Island, which is just a few miles from me now. Not much river separating Deer Island from mainland Oregon, more of a slough, easy swim.

I hope it hangs around, but it is hunting season and I think a lot of folks around here wouldn't hesatate taking him for the rack he has. I assume there's also a possibility of hybrids with all the Blacktail does around.

 

[greybeard]

Some of the newer deer collars don't have the little box looking transmitter attached to the collar--everything is built inside the collar itself, including the antenna. Better and smaller batteries can fit just about anywhere nowadays. Some just had tiny l.e.d. lights built in to the collars so the animals can be observed at night more easily:

To accommodate electrical components, two
standard polyvinyl deer neck collars each 17.8 by
55.9 cm were stitched together to form one collar
35.6 cm wide. Three adjustable leather straps
with buckles were riveted to each collar (fig. 3).
Four holes were punched into each collar and
fitted with lamp holders to secure lamps. Seven
battery holders with 22.5-volt batteries were
riveted on the inside of the collar to provide a
series hookup of 157.5 volts. This voltage was
necessary to activate four neon lamps and maxi-
mize life expectancy of each collar. Electrical
connections were soldered to insure reliability of
the units, and all exposed wires, sockets, and bat-
teries were protected by wrapping with reinforced
fiberglass tape. A covering of foam rubber 2.5 cm



thick was secured to the inside of the collar. This
material protected the deer from the attached
hardware, and served as heat and moisture insu-
lation for the electronic components.

Four capacitors (1 mfd 200) and four resistors
(0.5 watt) were used for blinking light circuits.
The resistor regulated the current and the time
needed to charge the capacitor to a minimum of
105 volts. Once charged, the lamp flashed, dis-
charging the capacitor; the sequence was repeat-
ed as long as batteries maintained necessary
current. The blinking rate was determined by R x
C = T; where R = resistance, C = capacitance
and T = time. The intensity of light for constant-
light circuits (fig. 4) was determined by the value
of the resistor. Weight of each collar fully
equipped was approximately 690 grams. Ma-
terials and costs for each collar are presented in
table 1.

They use the collars and ear tags here too for chronic wasting disease research.

 

[TexasBred]

Early this spring my wife and son saw a deer on the property with a yellow collar, too early for antlers, thought it was a pet doe.

This afternoon I saw the Buck in the pasture, a very nice big 3x3 (6 point to you eastern and southern guys :D ). It does have a yellow and black collar and at least one ear tag, maybe a tag in each ear. Does not look like a store bought "pet" collar. Our bow season is winding down and rifle is around the corner, so the buck did not hang around too long, I did get some binocs on him, nice buck. If it bugs me enough I'll call fish and wildlife tomorrow, Monday. As an after thought I wished I would have noticed if he was a white tail, their protected here, we have black tails and mule over eastern Oregon.

Anyway, any clues to why the colar and tags? I don't think he's a pet released.

Alan do you folks have any high fence deer ranches up there? Down here many of the high fence ranches put ear tags in the ears.... especially the "scientific breeders" who basically raise penned deer.